The Most Hated Movie I Love

[mishalak]

I really like David Lynch's Dune. At times it seems like everyone else hates it and likes the Sci-Fi version better. For the life of me I can't figure out why. I wonder if that could be a meme. What movie do you defend when people start saying, "Oh that was the worse ever!"?

Comments

[mix-o-choc.livejournal.com]

Have you seen DUNE 2? The sons and daughters of DUNE and what's happend to them yadda yadda ... good looking cast I must say ...

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I didn't bother after the severe lack of acting in the first Sci-Fi production. Plus I was on a terror against them at the time because they cancelled Farscape. They canceled Farscape! We hates them forever!

[mix-o-choc.livejournal.com]

Hmm Farscape was always a tripout for me ... I see all these australian actors on it all the time and I'm like hey didn't I just see you acting in a soap opera just like three hours ago?

[spudicus.livejournal.com]

Kaia agrees with you. She liked David Lynch's version better as well. I think I was disapointed in it because I loved the book so much and was not able to take it for what it was. On a side note, my junior high school history teacher had the "fear is the little death" quote posted in his classroom. He was so cool.

I love the Flash Gordon movie "Flash" with the music by Queen. I get strange looks for that one. Kaia just rolls her eyes. :P

[dragon-smoke.livejournal.com]

Mishalak- I have always loved that version of Dune. We finally watched the SF Channel version last fall, and while it was good, I thought it dragged on way too long. And I just can't get past Sting and Kyle MacLachlan, not to mention Brad Dourif, Patrick Stewart and Virginia Madsen. They were awesome.

Spudicus- Thank goodness I am not the only one. Seriously, I think I saw Flash Gordon in the theater about seven times (probably a record beaten only by "Clash of the Titans"). After the first time, all I wanted was another glimpse of the little Hawk People Princess, because I SOOOOOO wanted to be her. And Prince Barin wasn't too bad either, though I was just ten years old. :-) It is funny you should mention that movie, because last Saturday I tore apart my garage looking for the soundtrack, and couldn't find it. *pout*

[dougs.livejournal.com]

It's true, the cast are extremely tasty. Sting and Kyle and Patrick and oooooohhh...

But everyone else is right. Bad film. Bad.

[dragon-smoke.livejournal.com]

Awwww. Now why do you say that?

I ask because honestly, I loved the film and saw it many times before FINALLY completing the novel.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

Because I loved the book and read it many times before FINALLY watching the film.

The film became bearable once I'd learnt to pretend that it never had anything remotely to do with the book. Perhaps he should have named it something else.

[dragon-smoke.livejournal.com]

That is what I was wondering. Mainly because it had been so long since I read the book before I saw the new adaptation, I couldn't complain or compliment too much, so I have always gone by the "where I was at the time I saw this" sort of review. Thanks. I am sure it would have been totally different for me if the book had been fresh in my head during the veiwing of either adaptation.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I think that people who know and liked the book probably were wondering what the two had to do with each other.

Which is why I dislike the film so very much, I think.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I did see the film first, so that probably helps. However I really don't see the movie as being so utterly massively wrong. Probably because the first time I saw Dune I saw the 3.5 hour long Alan Smithee version, which included all the fricking cool stuff. From reducing bodies for their water to drowning little sandworms to make the water of life it was a sci-fi delight. I've seen that version available on DVD, though only in TV standard aspect since that's what it was cut for. I might get it anyway and then hack my disc player so I can watch it even though it is region 2.

Lynch totally changed things with the whole army based on a new technique thing, but on the other hand it looks very strange to have massive battles of nothing but knife fighting because of shields. But aside from that and the rain at the end everything else had the right feel, the right look, and the right attitude for the Imperium at the time of Shaddam IV.

That's why I didn't like the Sci-Fi version at all. It had the feel of a high school play. It felt like no one there really believed in what they were doing. They got lines literally right but none of the force of personality or spirit behind the lines.

So I feel like while Lynch's Dune works as a movie and not very well as an adaptation, the Sci-Fi Channel's doesn't work as either.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yay, Kaia agrees with me!! I shall have to have a Dune night. Or a Dune party!

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I too really liked the David Lynch Dune. (I've never seen the Sci-Fi Channel version, so I have no basis for comparison.) What I remember more than anything else about the David Lynch Dune was the anticipation before it came out, with all the magazines scrambling to try to get pictures of the sandworms before the film's release. This was one of the first movies where I was sufficiently in touch with the SF world to get excited about it before it came out, following the rumors, reading each new article about it, etc. (Which reminds me: WTF with Starlog going up to $8 dollars an issue? What, I go away for a few years and they get delusions of grandeur? Does this really work for them?)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I think that all the hype probably hurt Dune.

I don't think I've ever read Starlog.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

You're probably right about all the hype hurting Dune but considering the time in which the movie was made, it could hardly help but have a lot of hype.

I could see paying $8 for Starlog if there were something special about it, but it's the same media SF coverage that you can get in any number of other magazines for $5. Apparently they think they get an extra $3 an issue for seniority.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

I'm embarassed to say this, but "Mr. Wrong"

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've not even seen that movie. Unfairly panned or does it touch you in a way that most other people have not got?

[publius1.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's unfairly panned, but it's a satire. It was released on Valentine's Day, and that may be part of the reason people hated it so much — it's about a stalker.

Humor's horribly subjective. Apparently, that's humor that only I can like...

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

(I like the Lynchian bits of Dune and the Herbert bits of Dune, but they don't blend at all- kind of like Bertolucci and The Last Emperor.) Guil;ty pleasure? The Beastmaster, in a walk.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. More Conany than the actual Conan movies, Beastmaster is fun!

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

No, you're absolutely right about David Lynch's Dune. I mean, it made no sense and mad some puzzling changes in the plot, but I thought it captured the spirit if Dune better than the Sci-Fi one.

For one thing, David Lynch isn't afraid of religion and religion is a large part of what Dune is about.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

W00T! Lovers of Lynch's Dune unite! We have nothing to lose and might just get an extended version!

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Conan the Destroyer ... I think it's like a D&D adventure... everyone hates it... but it has Grace Jones!

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I must go watch this movie again. I saw it when I was a kid, but don't remember much of it. Was it the one with Red Sonja or whatever her name is? Oh wait, IMDB! <looks> Nope different movie. Have to go watch them both again!

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Howard the Duck. All anyone noticed was the midget in a duck suit, but it was actually funny (on purpose). I enjoyed it more than Blade Runner.

Mystery Men c'est le bomb

[armoire-man.livejournal.com]

Hm...maybe I'll watch David's Dune someday. It's been decades.

Mystery Men. Oh, I could go on and on! So I shall!

It was cool to see a piece of Bob Burden's (Flaming Carrot) universe onscreen.

I identify far too strongly with Ben Stiller's impotently enraged character, Mr. Furious, had the hots for Janeane Garofalo's "Baby Bowler", and wanted to hang out at the diner with the Shoveler and the Blue Raja, and visit Tom Waits' Weapons Master.

The whole superhero-as-garage-band take was right on.  I've been in bands that were just as stupid, and lasted about a day, and I've played superheros like that in improv shows.

I was disappointed when there were no Mystery Men action figures. I mean...little plastic Ben Stillers and Janeane Garofalos and Tom Waitses! Damn! Damn!

I'll have to make do with my hand-made Flaming Carrot action figure, from my friend Laura, which is, indeed, beyond cool.

Re: Mystery Men c'est le bomb

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I like Mystery Men as well! It was so much fun, I want to run a gaming campaign like that sometime. "We're not the big name superheroes, we're more like local guys with super powers."

Officially bad movies I still like

[(Anonymous)]

I fall in the "read the book and therefore had problems" camp with Lynch's Dune. I like the casting and there were cool things about it, but Lynch's auteur tendencies irked me ... some of the changes he made altered what I saw as intrinsic parts of the book. But the Sci-Fi version had lots of problems too. But Kyle MacLachlan is yummy ... I even liked the cheesy sci-fi film he was in--The Hidden. He wasn't in The Hidden 2, so it wasn't worth watching.
Other movies that are officially not good that I still like... probably legion. Some off the top of my head: Deathrace 2000 (probably my favorite Stallone movie along with Tango and Cash), The Last Starfighter, The Last Dragon (wasn't that Vanity's only movie besides Purple Rain?), Shock Treatment (at least a lot of my friends tell me it's a bad movie, though I disagree), and any happy-ending Western with Audie Murphy. There were a bunch of old Tony Curtis movies I watched and liked, but they never run them on TV any more and they don't seem to be available for purchase: Flesh & Fury, The Black Shield of Falsworth (yonder is the castle of my fadda), 40 Pounds of Trouble). Oh, and The Lively Set with Doug McClure and Tony Darren. I guess it's obvious that I watched way too many movies in my impressionable youth. --Rose

[jinian.livejournal.com]

This is really embarrassing, but:

I like the Avengers remake from a few years back. It's neat-looking, and that's all it takes. I'm a slut for pretty movies. (Pretty actors don't hurt, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient on their own.)

[shadowpryde.livejournal.com]

That is the only Dune I watch. I tried watching the Sci-fi channel's version and it just didn't gut me the way David Lynch's did. However, I am an absolute snot about it and will NOT watch the snipped up, edited version that is for sale. I managed several years ago to snap up a copy of the 3.5 hour version and watch it all the time. Yes, it is subtitled in Japanese. I learned to ignore that years ago. This movie has survived 13 moves, 2 of which were cross-country, 1 divorce, several best friends, and a second marriage. Truth be told, though, most of the people rip this particular movie a new one because of the rain in the end and "that's not consistent with the book". So freakin' what ... have these people watched other movies that were made from books and looked at those inconsistencies?

Anyway ... all about the love for David Lynch's Dune here. And frankly, that is the movie I defend when people start to say that was the worst movie ever.

-Annabel-

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

The Last Action Hero. Because American audiences don't understand parody. I laughed all the way through it, getting strange looks from other audience members, and walked out of the theater hearing people around me say things like, "that was the dumbest action movie ever".

Well no shit, Sherlock, that was the whole point.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yeah. They apparently don't get a lot of movies like that. Sometimes I think Hollywood is spot on in thinking that American audiences just won't get it if it made too complicated. Man. Now I need to go buy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or something.

[sraun]

I'll defend the Lynch Dune upon occasion. I figured out it's (to me) biggest problem the very first time I watched - what favorite sub-plot of your's from the book did it set up and not resolve? Everyone I talked to who had read the book had a favorite sub-plot that the movie set up and then dropped.

In terms of using the title and nothing else, Dune was nowhere near as bad as, say, Starship Troopers.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Or how about Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame? Title and just about nothing else. Or The Cat in the Hat, which I have not seen, but I can guess about how much they used based upon the trailers.